Effective and practical high speed flight performance in commercial aircraft is very difficult to achieve both in a pragmatic sense and in the superlative sense from the position of passenger comfort and thus a successful business model to benefit profitability.
High speed flight requirements are demanding on aircraft with flight missions and design envelopes which exceed Mach 1.0 and doubly difficult when the design requires speeds above Mach 2.0 simultaneously with effective ranges. As speeds rise in aircraft designs to trim flight times over long ranges, in consideration of speeds in excess of Mach 3.0 and service ceilings above 50,000 feet physical, effects on the airframe become problematic from aerothermodynamic heating, subsequently generated drag, and the heating of the airframe from the air in which the aircraft is passing through. Drag increases at the cube of the speed, that is, as speed doubles, drag increase at a three-fold rate. Simultaneously, aircraft designed to travel at these speeds generate shock waves from the nose rearward of the aircraft. These shock waves form in trains, propagating to the ground causing sonic booms.
Research and development in aircraft configurations for very high speed flight has been conducted by major international institutes and aircraft companies over the years, but none have addressed the benefits of flight speeds to be sustained at Mach 3.5, or higher, nor the technical challenges required to be addressed to successfully overcome the challenges of flying at these speeds over a sustained period, or the additional aerodynamic technical challenges of approach and landing when the same high speed configuration must be able to fly close to stall and high angles of attack so as to arrest on commercial runways (typically 1.5-2 miles in length, 7000-10,000 ft.).
Accordingly, a need exists for an aircraft which can maximize aerodynamic performance, efficiency and comfort while carrying passengers over long distances at very high flight speeds and Mach numbers.